We mocked Japanese tourists for getting the three-quarter length all wrong, says JAMES SHERWOOD, but there is a right way

A Spanish seaside holiday does not have to be overpackaged and overcrowded. Jill Crawshaw selects some lesser-known places for freer spirits

"ESPANA POR FAVOR" chanted a crowd of demonstrators in Parliament Square yesterday, cheerfully putting their case that Senator Augusto Pinochet should be allowed to take his complimentary trip to the Costa del Sol.

A remote cottage with a swimming pool, high up in the hills of Andalucia, sounded an ideal escape from the word processor. Then reality set in.

IN 1963, in Birmingham, the guitarist and vocalist Barry Pritchard formed a group called the Fortunes with Glen Dale and Rod Allen, and they were signed by the eccentric promoter Reg Calvert. Pritchard recalled the first bookings: "Reg held competitions and, if people shouted a number that we couldn't do, he would pay them half-a-crown. It was no big deal. There might be 20 people shouting out, so Reg would pick out numbers that we knew."

INDISPENSABLE ADVICE FROM REAL LIFE'S AGONY AUNT AND UNCLE

Marbella has plunged into debt while its mayor has grown fabulously rich, writes Elizabeth Nash

British teenager revives memory of his Open fairytale as he makes qualifying cut. By Andy Farrell in San Roque

ALL AROUND the globe, England seemed to be enjoying a remarkable run of success. From Lee Westwood in Japan, to Nick Faldo and David Carter in the World Cup in New Zealand and Laura Davies at the LPGA Tour Championship in Las Vegas leaderboards have made good reading. But in the biggest gamble of them all, the European Tour's Qualifying School, this was not the case.

TO LISTEN to Ken Rose, Justin's father, a career of stardom has already been mapped out for the 18-year-old from Hampshire via Johannesburg. There is one small problem - that of making the giant leap on to the European Tour - and it is one Rose has to attempt to make along with 180 others at the Qualifying School. After an opening 78, most of them were ahead of the young prodigy.

They are all aiming to be school-leavers but only 35 players will graduate after a gruelling six-day examination

The Qualifying School is golf's most agonising examination of the soul. It will be Phil Golding's 14th visit

It's warm, cheap, easy to get to and some of Europe's best sights are on the doorstep. No wonder it's popular, writes Jeremy Atiyah

CAN YOU imagine just how tiny the world has really become? Well, this tiny: Thomson Holidays recently announced that it has run out of new feasible destinations to which to send its customers. The more recent package holiday destinations such as Cuba and Mexico may well be the last of their type to be developed.